


The Dimmendark

by Charles_Rockafellor



Category: AD&D - Fandom, D&D - Fandom, Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Dungeons & Dragons - All Media Types
Genre: A-Un (dragon-yōkai – InuYasha), Alternate Universe - Dungeons & Dragons, Arkadia (Les Mondes Engloutis | Spartakus and the sun beneath the sea), Captain Bloth (The Pirates of Dark Water), Covert Operation, Dr. Claw (Inspector Gadget), Fluff, Food Porn, Gen, Implied/Referenced Torment, Implied/Referenced Torture, Interspecies Sex, Joie de Vivre, Mild Sexual Content, Military AU, Multi, ODM gear (omni-directional mobility gear) - Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan, Tabaxi, Thaumaturgy (Master of the five magics; Lyndon Hardy), Treasure Hunting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-31
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-03 07:16:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24467065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Charles_Rockafellor/pseuds/Charles_Rockafellor
Summary: A peaceful night on watch, soaring far above the fungal canopy: life can be good, even in a world of shadows -- but what will come of a mysterious map discovered while vacationing is another matter entirely.While I have no set place in mind for the Dimmendark, it likely lies to the west northwest of Earth One onthe local map of the Icewall universe.Update 28 Jan 2021:I still have all of my notes and intend to get back to this, but I gotside-tracked with other ficsfor a few months, and have been burned out since Nov (maybe Dec). I haven't abandoned it, just shelved it for a bit. Please accept my apologies for the delay! 🙂 By way of recompense, here's a tutorial that you might find useful forFonts, and colors, and work skins, oh my!𝑫𝒐𝒏'𝒕 𝒇𝒐𝒓𝒈𝒆𝒕 𝒕𝒐 𝑳𝒊𝒌𝒆, 𝑺𝒉𝒂𝒓𝒆, 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑺𝒖𝒃𝒔𝒄𝒓𝒊𝒃𝒆! ❤️
Comments: 3
Kudos: 2
Collections: Dice-RPG worlds, Food Porn of Icewall





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **Update 28 Jan 2021:** I still have all of my notes and intend to get back to this, but I got [side-tracked with other fics](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Charles_Rockafellor/collections) for a few months, and have been burned out since Nov (maybe Dec). I haven't abandoned it, just shelved it for a bit. Please accept my apologies for the delay! 🙂 By way of recompense, here's a tutorial that you might find useful for [Fonts, and colors, and work skins, oh my!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28934610)

Soaring gently through the gloam on wings of gossamer, the Nightrider adjusted herself to a more relaxed position. She was an Overwatch ranger in the High Guard, tasked with general patrol, keeping an eye out for anything that might come up, her area of responsibility a broad region and without specific remit. Anything could happen, from wildfire to lost campers to bushwhackers to full scale invasion. Anything _could_ happen, but this was just another quiet shift in the perpetual twilight, cool and humid, the humus below filling the air with a rich and earthy scent.

Far down on the canopy, she could see one of the larger millipedes transporting fungal masses from the farm. Glancing around, she took a moment to pull one of her mushroom 'burgers from her backpack. It wasn't lunchtime yet, but snacks never went amiss.

Her moth ignored her movements, content to fly whither its instincts called it. Considering that its eyes alone were broader in any direction than she was tall, this posed it little difficulty.

The glowing orbs wandering their mysterious and unpredictable paths above cast an ever-changing hue across the land, soft colors interplaying with the varying textures and forms that they encountered.

She sighed contentedly, imagining her watch nearly over, thinking ahead to her plans for the weekend. She and a group of friends had booked a camping tour of the crystal caverns not far from home, with the option to extend by the week – and she some leave saved up, so she might do just that. She'd always wanted to go, but never had the time, and they'd finally convinced her to pencil it into her schedule.

It was quiet up here in a way that was subtly but unmistakably different from the peace to be had down there. This was a soft and embracing silence, rather than inescapable or confining. A vibrant stillness that reached out in every direction and from every direction, coaxing, alluring, intoxicating, promising no more than it could deliver, and always delivering on its promise. A lover's gentle touch, caressing the senses. A luxurious freedom to be basked in.

Her moth's flight took on a southerly bent, and soon the uppermost reaches of the crystal caverns hove into view. They were as beautiful as ever, prismatic and mesmerizing.

She was half-Tabaxi **1** , a jaguar-girl on her mother's side – her parents were both good fighters who'd made a good name for themselves along with a good purse, then retired to open a bed and breakfast, and trained her well. Her parentage might have caused problems elsewhere, but she'd lucked out and been born to a welcoming province, one that valued people for who they were, not what; in this, she'd found good friends who loved her, a good career that she was good at, a purpose in life and a love for it. It also meant that her libido was distinctly higher than most others', but that seemed to make her more popular, rather than resented. In all, life was good.

Taking out her thermos of allspice-laced hot chocolate, she sighed again, looking out over the unfolding expanse of the cavern tops, a land of wild facets and defiles. She'd scouted the tour's projected path and intended to make good use of the hot springs at their first camp – it also had an enormous topaz wall with a chatoyant “defect,” her favorite. Her friends were sure to be so inclined, and it would certainly make for an entertaining evening.

**O ~~~ O**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **1** Tabaxi: For the 2e D&D details of Tabaxi, please see the URL below.  
> ▐► <http://dedpihto.narod.ru/games/Monsters1/MM00278.htm>


	2. Message in a bottle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While on her weekend getaway with FWBs, our heroine discovers a secret map.

She had awoken at the crack of evening, well rested and looking forward to the weekend. Rushing through breakfast and kissing her parents goodbye, she'd taken off in haste to meet everyone at their default hangout, _The Chaste Rake_ , and before having gained so much as the garden gate, she'd rushed back for a last round of hugs before setting off again.

Now she sat there, luxuriating in the closeness of friends, the smells in the air, and a nicely topped-off belly. The topping off was two fold: she had been snacking while waiting for everyone else to show up and was currently awaiting only the pleasure of second breakfast, now that they'd all placed their more substantial orders.

_Grub-lamb marinara; not bad. An appropriately sweet base with marjoram, shallots, chervil, and mushrooms. Nice, thick, gooey cheese layer – but it needs a crispy layer to top that off. Needs a little lime and cilantro, too; maybe some mint... nothing like Mom's cooking though. And what Dad can't do with puffball mushrooms wouldn't fill a thimble. Something about clam strips... lightly brushed with a sweet and dark whole grain mustard-allemande sauce? Hang on; curried parboiled eggs with puffball mushrooms and pico de gallo._

Evening had dawned several hours ago, and she'd had a large breakfast, but food was never far from her thoughts.

“Hey Eng, what are you so deep in thought about?”

 _ɛŋ **ː**_ **1** , translating roughly as inquiring-after-boisterous-play-but-cuddles-would-suffice. It was what she let her friends call her. Nobody ever got her real name right, and this was close enough. _ʔŋ ŋr_ _h_ _ɛh_ _ **ː** _ really wasn't that hard to pronounce, and it captured her personality so beautifully: happy / playful / curious, but people mostly left off the first _ʔŋ_ (leaving off the remaining _ŋr_ _h_ _ɛh_ _ **ː**_ ), which sort of translated as a non-word expression of confusion – or sometimes, and even worse, pronounced it as _ʔŋŋrɛ_ _h_ or _ʔŋ_ _ː_ _rɛ_ , each of which expressed irritated disgust, the latter with an added undertone of confrontation.

“Nothing much,” filing her thoughts away for later, “just food.”

“Food? You? Why am I not surprised?” asked Stony, a Human ranger/thief, and an absolute tank.

“Your wine should be here soon, madame. I got you chardonnay, I think.”

“You ordered me a chardonnay to go with grub-lamb. _Red_ meat, _white_ wine?!?”

“No wait – the other one... cabernet!”

Her eye twitching, as well as her tail, she replied calmly, “You're going to fuck me well for that later, I promise you.”

Hildur giggled. A Dwarf with positively the silkiest of beards; she always tickled her with it in just the right way...

“Oh, you think that's funny, do you? Just for that, you'll be on clean-up duty when he's done, so don't get too full of snacks!”

This was no idle threat on her part, either. She was the proud and well-versed owner of a _Ring of Limited Polymorph Self_ , which she made good use of at every chance – such chances invariably being libidinous in nature. On its own, it was good for several changes per night, but she'd had it hacked so that partners could make use of it within a ten foot radius of her, and she'd added a minor aura to heighten the drives and experiences of everyone within that same radius (the aura could be turned off, or triggered, but she simply left it on by default). It was limited to maintaining one's original mass and volume, but the details were still negotiable: body parts could be caused to change size and sex, as well as any fluids produced thereby, and Eng now intended to make this evening's festivities a rather filling experience for Hildur.

The natural spring turned out to be a chlorine pool, which she hadn't expected, but it was a novel experience and those were always welcome. It also served to wash away some of the sex-fog emanating from her friends, which had really been beginning to do a number on her, distracting her and leaving her mind in a stoned haze. That might not last for long after they got out, but it might at least defer matters and prolong the tingling anticipation.

Furthermore, it left them all quite hungry. This was no small feat, given the hike out beforehand.

They'd snacked well at the gift shop cafeteria while browsing through the pamphlets and maps, waiting for their guide at the appointed hour. They'd bought handfuls of yakitori, travel bowls of yakisoba, bagged sandwiches and heroes, and multiple wineskins of different drinks from the vending carts as they'd set out. This would presumably have stood them well, but then the hike itself brought them across deep blue ponds adrift with goldenrod, dark tunnels of overhanging vines and thick-trunked ancient trees and grasses, winding paths covered with tiny flowers in a million colors, scintillating under their lanterns' light, grottoes of damp and softly matted moss... four hours had gone by in the blink of an eye as they traveled over hill and through dale, marveling at the wildlife, snakes of every description slithering away into the undergrowth, pitcher plants the size of a large dog emitting the sweetest and most alluring of perfumes, frogwart bladder plants snapping fist-sized insects from mid-flight and reeling them into their constricting digestive leaves.

The air was stimulating, refreshing, invigorating, their travels made light until reaching the mouth of the Crystal Canyons proper. They wouldn't reach the real caverns themselves until nightfall, but the rest of the evening promised itself to hold their attentions in good stead as they rested.

Opening her basic catering-model _Picnic Basket of Holding_ , Eng peered in and poked around to see what her parents had packed for them. Ghee-soaked bacon-panko chicken, a rich flea-beef sauce, bread-berry buns from the family penicillium tree, a generous tub of sweet dipping-butter, and a velvety, brothy stew of zucchini, mushrooms, kale, crushed tomato, and wafers of Brazil nut. Had their cooking not already been top notch, the basket's magic would still have ensured the food coming out to be four stars out of five – and whatever you put in there was sure to keep from spoiling or changing temperature or getting soggy or stale, no matter how long it sat. It might not be able to turn gravel to grapes, or restore rotted materials to the peak of healthful eating, but they'd be just about the best damned gravel and rotten meat that you'd ever eaten. Luckily, her parents had packed enough food for everyone, even if they were to extend their weekend by two further weeks, so they probably wouldn't have to worry about gravel recipes any time soon and could simply focus on the familiar and comfortable domesticity at hand.

One of these days she'd settle down, she was sure – as soon as she found the right small group of people, the seven or eight people who were just right for her, her wandering days would be over – but right now, she was at a good place in life, and easing her tensions was never far from the moment. Settling down could wait for a little while just yet, and she had “Kegel muscles” that most species couldn't even dream of, so she never lacked for would-be partners.

Domesticity. Whenever she thought of that, she couldn't quite picture just what that would mean for her, but it always involved a multilevel Barbapapa-contracted chia nest-cave gallery, just like home – and maybe a pier bed with further shelving in posts at the foot. The Barbapapa were amazing horticulturalists by nature, and their architecture took such breathtaking but organic turns that she couldn't imagine wanting anything else. Maybe a pet shmoo.

Time to focus on lunch; much more thought about shmoos and how many different places in her they could stick their noticeably expandable bits all at once... and that sex-fog would be back at double force in a heartbeat.

The rest of the evening flew by in a similar whirl of wonder, the landscape giving way now to sands of gemstone colors, fine grained fossil pebbles, and small wind-blown dunes. Water trickled in some few places, offering a profusion of growth that came to shock the eye after longer stretches of stone and lichen.

As evening began to come to a close, they found themselves standing at their first camp. A wide expanse of clover covered it, the walls of this cul de sac rising gently with outcrops and handholds abounding for the more curious climbers. It also offered a wonderful view of a large granite quarried lake with a tourist shack if they were minded to fish, swim, or go boating.

As they set up camp for the night, a large tent sufficing for them all with a single wrap-around air cushion as their shared bed, Eng caught a fleeting motion through the corner of her eye.

Focusing on it instinctively, her head remaining fixed on the task at hand as drilled into her by training, she spotted it.

A jackalope. Good sized, but still fairly young and tender, likely to yield at least twenty pounds of meat.

Taking off in an instant, she halved the distance between them before it became fully aware of her.

Haring off as well, it dodged and jinked, giving her a good run for her money. Dashing through some gorse did it no good, her own fur preventing this being more than a minor hindrance, it made for a small field of sage nearby.

That was its downfall.

In a thrice, she was upon it, her fangs sinking into its throat as her claws held it steady, stilling its dying kicks as she cut off its breathing and circulation.

Returning with her prize, she drew some quiet applause. Bowing to all with mock magnanimity, she set it by the stone circle for cleaning, and as darkness later fell, they enjoyed a fresh barbecue and watched bunyips frolicking in the waters.

Jade rods sticking out of the ground, humming ever so slightly in the breeze. Three days into their exploring, they were now almost at the end of their return leg of the trip, and looking forward to relaxing in the recuperation cabin, surround-sense scryball shows playing as they lounged in the hot tub.

Eng had followed a little-used side trail on a whim though, and they now found themselves lost for the moment in the splendor before them. The branching paths rarely brought visitors in this direction, being so far from the end-goal of civilization once more, but the beauty that it offered was well worth it.

Poking around the base of a particularly interesting cluster, she found a tablet of crystal that didn't quite match the surrounds at all.

Bringing it forth from the mounded sands only made matters worse. It was only some piece of junk, but of a make that she'd never seen before.

The size of her hand, she could roll and fold it, stretch it out like taffy and compact it again. Brushing her hands across the screen, she found a small detent that apparently activated the device. The screen glowed dully for a moment, then displayed a large-scale map with a classic treasure-mark “X,” losing focus for a moment while zooming out and returning once more to focus as it zoomed in on what was clearly the very canyon that she was standing in at the moment.

It also showing a slowly pulsing green chevron pointing a little to the south of southeast.

Visions of treasure and adventure danced through her head, her imaginary self fending off monsters with her omni-directional mobility gear as she raced back to show the others.

**O ~~~ O**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **1 ↑** For clarification of this paragraph's name pronunciations, please see the IPA ([International Phonetic Alphabet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet#Letters)).


	3. The magical mystery tour

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our heroine continues on the trail of treasure: the journey begins, the plot thickens, and Eng makes a new friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is where a previously light-hearted adventure introduces some very unpleasant elements. My apologies in advance for that. While I have no intention of going into lurid detail, nor even to dwell long on their implicit presence, they do establish certain facts about the nature of some of the NPCs ("Captain Blaw" in particular, who is the amalgamation of Darkwater's Captain Bloth and Inspector Gadget's Dr. Claw -- and then extrapolated to his worst low-level D&D BBEG form). These details are those that lie at the heart of the less-pleasant tags attached to this story.
> 
> Please be advised that although not explicit, some readers might not wish to proceed further.

The map detected and evaded evil. It showed a timer and a qualifier outline, currently zeroed out at three gray bars. The timer changed per mode of travel in mind. That was all that the NDI wizards in the back-shop had been able to determine.

_Nice; really informative there, guys. Non-destructive inspections don't really seem to live up to their mission statement, do they?_

Eng's thoughts traveled back to dinner at the lodge on their final night at the resort. It now seemed so long ago that she'd been eyeing the menu, rearranging pieces of it to a meal plan for the menu at home. _An entrée of bœuf bourguignon, and maybe a small but tasteful arrangement of cucumber sticks, tomato wedges, and chunks of feta; a main course of parmigiano risotto with roasted shrimp pepperoncini, some shredded duck; lemon cod on the side... a little sausage ragù... The wine would have to be rosé, of course. Close with a puff pastry stuffed with pomegranate and port._

She'd decided that she'd had to bring the shop into the loop. She hadn't been on duty when she'd found the map, nor had it been found on any official property – but she wasn't entirely the free agent that she might have been, had she been civilian. She couldn't simply take off without leave, nor did she think the map necessarily without some security implications. Her section chief had agreed with her, and upchanneled it.

After a few days of debate, she had her briefing: they'd decided that it didn't pose any great threat, but could still be of interest. She'd been assigned to pursue the matter, since the map only responded to her, but it would be done in a low-key fashion. They were extending her “official” leave on paper without charging her the leave, but it was to be a covert mission in fact. They wanted to play some kind of a tourist gimmick via a real travel agency. The mission should take two weeks in toto, if the timer's responses to her thoughts of a tour bus were to be believed.

Then the most annoying part: she could bring her _personal_ ODM Gear **1** and whatever else she chose, but no professional gear from work beyond boots and such.

None of this fit with what she'd expected, but it was still her chance to see where things led. She didn't like the idea of dragging civilians into the mix at all, but her supervisor had assured her that a civilian contractor would be driving; a contractor with a fair amount of experience in delicate situations. The “mystery tour,” as it would be touted, would include a standard entourage of outriders: three in the front, three in the back, and one to each side, with the addition of three more on the roof for overwatch. While the entourage focused on mêlée and some ranged defense, and the exact mix was still being worked out, there would be at least one wizard and two clerics or fighter-clerics in the end. There would also be one crossbow riding adjacent to the driver, which wasn't unusual, and three slick-sleeves mixed into the otherwise civilian group, which made her nervous. She was a first-termer too, but slick-sleeves were loose cannons.

She'd sought and obtained permission to enlist her friends for the trip, as both backup and further cover, should they choose to go along. She knew that they would, so that left only the remaining seats to fill. The tour agency's buses could seat thirty two passengers, but the boss had said that this tour would be sparsely filled. She was to expect eight to ten civilians at most. Not good, but at least a comfortingly low number.

She continued to contemplate her upcoming travel plans as she headed home to prepare for the journey.

=====

Weasel **2** was low on the totem pole, relatively new to the ship and ill-fitting even now – in truth not likely long for this crew. He hoped to find a way out soon, lest the captain decide to find one for him.

It was he who had lost the map last year, and so it was he who had been tasked with watching the resort's entrance to the Crystal Canyons. Pursuant of this, Captain Blaw had arranged a modest stipend in order to feed and house him nearby.

The stipend covered a small cottage along the resort's main road just at the mouth of the canyons' entrance that led to the caverns, as well as an open lease to the lodge itself, its gym and dining facility, swimming pool and sauna and massage therapy, and so forth. He'd become a regular there in order to blend in, since he couldn't say how long it might be until someone at last were to discover the map and they could once more carry on with Blaw's quest. Weasel had stolen the map from the previous owner while it had stood at two green bars, that owner having passed the first two trials of three, then passed his own first trial before losing the map at the second test in the crystal canyons.

When he'd spotted an excited Eng heading back to the lodge with her friends, he'd followed her, of course, but with a spark of hope that he hadn't felt for quite some time. Sitting at a corner table, obscured by a potted plant, he'd glimpsed a furtive flash of what could be the map. He'd hung back after that, tailing her cautiously to her parents' bed and breakfast. They carried the air of adventurers though, and so he skulked around outside, rather than risk their eyes.

This carried its own risk, but it had paid off: she'd shown them the map indeed, and he had caught snippets of their conversation.

The next morning, he'd been up early and ready to tail her further to the base, hoping for a chance at anything useful, but then lost her once she'd entered. He couldn't follow her any further until she'd left for the day. At least he'd learned from their conversation that evening that she'd be booking a tour with a travel agency the next day.

_Curiouser and curiouser._

Now standing before Captain Blaw aboard _Maelstrom_ , reporting all of his findings with some confidence, he felt some gnawing concern. A tingling in his scalp as if change were indeed coming, but not without some surprises ahead.

Blaw's left hand drummed the armrest of his chair as he considered things. This was always unnerving to Weasel for any number of reasons, not least of which being Blaw's temperament, but certainly to include the fact that his hand wasn't his. It was an arcanodraulic mechanism. What had happened to his natural one, Weasel had never had the courage to ask.

Blaw's other hand stroked a cat, playing with its scruff and ears.

An Elf cambion, Blaw always gave the impression of brick redness and a whiff of smoke. The brazier and perpetual flame, the gently curving bowl of sand, the small torture instruments... the plate and utensils completing the set, and wholly unrelated to his regular meals... Weasel didn't want to know.

The ship's cantilevered legs **3** continued their mindless walk. He could hear the chickens clucking away in their run. What truly unsettled him was the gelatinous amœbæ in their pit; those he couldn't hear, but that was what always worried him the most about them.

He'd hoped to report back during Blaw's four o'clock tea and cake; the captain was usually at his best then. Instead, here he stood in the middle of ten o'clock soup and sandwiches. Almost the worst time to interrupt him with anything at all. Luckily, he hadn't yet begun on the dancing girls.

Blaw looked him over.

“You're getting soft, going native; you've grown too accustomed to their shepherd's pie, I think. And bathing,” Blaw observed, sniffing the air and noting the distinct presence of soap. This was, in plain fact, the truth: he'd taken to bathing almost every single week these days.

The captain returned his attention to his repast, at last.

Weasel sighed quietly in relief.

Dipping a large sandwich of roast beef and cheddar into a bowl of sour cream and onion dip, Blaw considered his table as he considered Weasel's report. Chicken broth with sautéed mushrooms, and a side dish of a foot-wide deep fried onion opened up to resemble an enormous head of honeysuckle. Not standing on gourmet etiquette, he was ever the gourmand and sought whatever satisfied his tongue and belly. He could afford to indulge them too, given his lucrative loans to restaurants and underworld figures for a mere percent of their profits and a free meal once or twice per month... _in perpetuity_. He didn't care about making profit himself, only about what profit could bring him, and he certainly didn't care to risk putting any restaurants out of business – they were too near and dear to his gluttony.

He offered a few slices of the beef to Weasel, who accepted.

“This soup needs oysters,” Blaw announced, waving at one of the girls on his bed, “Cream sauce, too.”

She left swiftly, her goal to reach the cook and ensure Blaw's meal be as pleasing as she could. Better the leers and pawing of the crew as she sought this out, than to risk his wrath for any delay.

He pulled a handful of nuts from the bedside bowl while awaiting his oysters.

Offering Weasel the same – a mix of plain, salted, spiced, herbed, candied, and pickled – his eyes wandered the room absently as he looked at the possibilities unfolding at last.

Weasel declined the nuts carefully, hiding his aversion.

The next day, Weasel was having an early brunch at the café next to the travel agency when Eng arrived. Hastily bagging the remainder, he walked in just as the agent had gotten past the empty casual greetings.

Looking over some brochures and maps as he waited, he found that she really did have a lovely shape. Her manner and speech were light, friendly, buoyant. Even infectious. He was smiling with her before long.

Once she'd concluded her arrangements, she left without more than a friendly nod to him, the bell jingling on the door cheerily as if to herald her very steps.

The agent had to speak twice before managing to get his attention, after which he promptly booked a seat – directly behind hers, claiming with some truth that he was so very smitten with her pretty face.

It was his name that caught him out.

“Weas– wait, what?” he began, having to think now, it having been so very long since he'd last used his real name, and not actually thinking just now of which aliases might be safe here, “I mean, name. Right. Kendig, Miles Kendig. Yes, it sounds like ' _Kend-ing_ ,' but there's no ' _n_ ' before the ' _g_ ' there, and yes, I'm sure that I know how to spell my own name properly, thank you.”

He now had a seat in the third row for the tour to depart in six days, and could report this next phase to have been complied with.

=====

_Clams Mornay... a beef reduction, and of course some lard or even tallow._

She sighed, thinking of how much better it would be with just a dab of giant tardigrade fat. Her tail twitched at this. It always twitched whenever she thought of tardigrades. What she wouldn't do just for the opportunity to hunt one of those... But there was a reason that she'd never be able to afford their products, much less hunt one: they were absolutely deadly. Farming them was an expensive task performed only by the highly skilled, so everything about them cost a lot of gold pieces, and hunting them was a dream even for the rich. Her parents had gotten her a small gift assortment last year, along with a few more-reasonably priced gifts. She'd shared every piece of it with them – the cheeses, the sliced meats, the butter – and it had all been heavenly, but she couldn't imagine how much it must have cost them! They did fairly well, and could afford something once in a blue, but... better to just return to her more mundane kitchen fancies, then.

_Use the reduction to deglaze a bacon griddle. Top it all with dill, chervil, and maybe some chives? Or furikake? That fish broth or consommé over rice would be good with a side of lightly sautéed zucchini, but maybe a furikake tincture with essential oils would be better. Serve it all with a coffee-whiskey cream liqueur. For dessert: some lemon sorbet over four parts honeydew melon – insectivorous plants have the most complex flavors._

_It would make a nice palette for the palate_ , she smiled.

_Fishy stuff and dairy yumminess! Who could ask for anything more?_ But in truth, she still dreamed of tardigrade, her tail twitching once more as she finished taking notes and put away her magic ear.

Eng's party sat in the second row, with Stony by the driver's side window, Eng along the aisle, and Hildur to the right of the aisle, with an empty seat to the far side. They'd switch up who was where, no doubt, but Eng would have to remain in one of the seats behind the driver. The first row itself was mostly empty space, other than the driver and the crossbowman. In the end, the agency had seated only fifteen passengers of the thirty two seats available, so there really were only nine civilians to worry about. The tour bus was drawn by a pair of double-headed Sesshōmaru dragon-yōkai, which seemed to draw the interest and not a little nervousness of the civilians and slick-sleeves alike.

Returning to the world around her, her eyes landed on Weasel's sorry, sodden sandwiches. He smelled nice, and she felt pity for him.

Eng offered him a trade of a thick BLT – bacon, liverwurst, and tomato – with rémoulade on rich brown bread in exchange for his two breakfast... _things_. The travel agency offered en route snacks, meals, and beverages, and he'd made the mistake of taking them up on it. Greasy sausage in cheesy eggs, in hash browns, in biscuits... with both gravy and honey. None of it looked appealing until she saw his pale orange-colored water. The food was certainly the less unappetizing of the two. This prompted her to a further trade of some cappuccino. As he dug in with zest, she stored away his goods in the picnic basket.

“Is there Worcestershire sauce in this?” he asked between bites.

This got them talking, and he claimed to know something of food.

“And what would you know of food, hmm?” she asked.

Her tone wasn't quite flirtatious, but the teasing came without any hint of mockery, which he found refreshing and encouraging in a way that he hadn't expected.

“Well, for starters, I know that cottage pie calls out for cheese in the potato topping – though only enough to give it body without being recognizably present – and savory in the meat, that fish needs to age for two or three days before you even consider using it... and that wine temperature really depends on the palate instead of some snooty twits.”

“I'm duly impressed,” she smiled, and she was indeed impressed. Too few ever knew more than which pub served the greasiest lumps of uncertain origin.

Brushing a strand of fur away from her ear and turning further in her seat, she leaned in to ask “And chicken tikka masala?”

He pondered this for a moment before replying, “I know how to pronounce it when I order.”

They continued to talk, and Eng told him of food and her dreams of tardigrades – she'd never be able to afford them unless she made high rank, and even then it would be an uncommon and inadvisable splurge, but still... lying somewhere between pork and duck with a deep dark-meat flavor, so succulent that you used a spoon...

As they approached the city gates, Eng took out her magic ear and took a picture, sending it home to where her parents could pass it along to the shop. It was a civilian model with an unsecured line, and hence no eyebrows were likely to be raised, wherever the map might take them. Unnoticed, _Maelstrom_ sat in the corner of the picture, just visible in the sprawling market outside of the city wall and law enforcement.

Leaving the city, the map's pointer at last ceased spinning erratically, suddenly shooting to the left, due north.

**O ~~~ O**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **1** ODM Gear: Omni-Directional Mobility Gear is a body harness that allows great mobility in combat under most conditions, permitting the user to fight in a three dimensional space, rather than being forced into ground-pounding. A standard ensemble includes cleats and fingerless gloves, piston-shot grappling hooks (rewound by a permanent spell at SPD 120+), vernier jets powered by canisters of compressed air refilled by tiny golems, and a light sword of a design halfway between that of a machete and a scimitar.
> 
> **2** Weasel: Lawful neutral human.
> 
> Captain Blaw, in terms of D&D: Neutral evil, level four daemonic Elf-cambion (+2 Hit Dice). STR 14, INT 11, WIS 10, DEX 12, CON 20, CHA 15.
> 
> The crew of Maelstrom consists of two lieutenants of level three, six level one-to-two minions, two slave girls, one level three cook, two zero-level scullions, one level five ship's druid (a defiler), an unstated number of amoebae, and two tiger lilies (Shir and Calla). Fourteen people, not including the captain, Weasel, the amoebae, the tiger lilies, or the ship itself.
> 
> One lieutenant, Iago, is a first level bard variant – assassin one / monk one / sorcerer one, with a single level of Tiefling bloodline. He's quite content not to be the boss; too much stress.
> 
> The other lieutenant is a Duergar gemologist and artificer (he also does metals and woods, some leather). His job is mostly to tinker with Blaw's arcanodraulic hand and assess and improve items before fencing them on the black market.
> 
> The druid has ambitions of becoming a Lich someday.
> 
> As for the girls, one was bought, one was kidnapped. They'd burned her parents' tavern down in Cragspire Pass, where she'd been the assistant barmaid.
> 
> **3** Maelstrom: feet like the pseudopodia of slugs are at the ends of the cantilevered legs, with an array of extensible gecko-koosh cilia of primal energy maintaining the grip as needed. The ship itself is possessed of a simple set of sapience commands lodged in the primal energies that drive it. The deck holds a chicken run that goes below decks, along with a healthy supply of mana moss **3a** and rot grubs **3b** ; with a little water and heat, all of the ship's waste matter is recycled, providing the crew a reliable flow of sustenance.
> 
> **3a** Mana moss: my own idea, from a world of overpowered mini-maxing Munchkin-gasmic indulgence that I had meant as a parody of the old 3.x D&D power-creep trend (this was before I'd seen what 4e had already done by then). That desert hell-world, 𝑆ℎ𝑜𝑘𝑟𝑎𝑛 𝐽𝑎𝑧𝑒𝑒𝑙𝑎𝑚, was created in-story by Dao & Efreeti and some other species, wholly cut off from the Astral Plane, and populated with kidnapped victims of every species (no clerics though); a sky of fire, a core of ice, and “clerics” that combined illusion, hedge magic, and sleight of hand (plus a dash of self-aid/buddy-care). Mana moss grows here and there and is one of the few benefits available: it grows under any conditions, is micro- and macro-nutritionally balanced, etc..
> 
> **3b** Rot grubs: for non-gamers; benefit, a rot grub is an unpleasant surprise often awaiting anyone (typically thieves) foolish / brave enough to listen at doors for sounds of monsters and bad guys. Rotting material needn't be wood, of course – dung piles, midden heaps, moldy sandwiches, and roadkill all present this issue, and rot grubs won't wait for an ear to present itself. They're not picky.


	4. Arkadia, the first trial

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Eng faces the first trial and realizes that it might not be quite as straightforward as she'd imagined.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I spun back through a few episodes of “Spartakus and the sun beneath the sea” in order to re-familiarize myself somewhat for this chapter. Since I wasn't trying to re-create Arkadia canonically, only capture pieces that fit for my specific need and the ambiance, I only jumped through here and there rather than analyzing everything in depth.
> 
> In passing, I noticed something funny: is it just me, or do S02E10 & E11 (“The land of the Chameleons” & “The token of the Manitou”) remind you of “Stargate:SG1” S02E11/12 & E13 (“The Tok'ra” & “Spirits”)? 𝐶𝑜-𝑖𝑛𝑘𝑦-𝑑𝑖𝑛𝑘? 𝐈 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐤 𝐧𝐨𝐭...

It hadn't been half an hour before the driver had stuffed his pipe full, and a sweet scent filled the air with its rich aroma. It hadn't been one minute before someone had pointed out the “no smoking” sign and been politely and rather pointedly ignored. He was a Dwarf, and even burlier than most, and the objection didn't go any further. The crossbowman to the right, a lanky Elf, had simply stuck a wad of shredded material into his cheek and proceeded to kick his feet up and lower his boonie hat.

The vets had brought their own supplies, with the outriders in particular hunting and gathering opportunistically here and there as they went. This was out of practical consideration for eventually needing to rely solely upon their supplies.

The slick-sleeves hadn't thought ahead, relying instead upon the good graces of whoever the lowest bidder was to supply the food for the tour's services even in preference to the rations in their packs. This was out of aversion for the rations, not yet having built up their taste buds' immunity nor quite such a practical and deep-seated appreciation for food of any sort when hunger presented itself. That and the fact that it would be going on their government travel cards, and they weren't about to turn down free food. Juice skins, bags of unidentifiable snack meats and nuts and seeds all thrown together, sandwiches of little more than wilted greens and liberal doses of grease, popped grains coated in salt and/or sugar – they had their per diem budgets and would ensure that those were used to the hilt.

The tourists seemed to be in a similar boat to that of the slick-sleeves, though with a little less travel experience to boot. They found it all exciting and new, too much so to pay attention to the food's quality or portion sizes – or the pace kept between such minor conveniences as rest stops or alternative sources.

“Miles, right?” Eng asked as the bus slowed some and pulled to the side of the road.

Weasel nodded, and was greatly relieved when she invited him to join them for lunch, and doubly so when it turned out to be yakisoba with a selection of wild game meats supplied by her flight's outrider elements. No mention was made of why they'd included her in dividing their largesse, but he hadn't thought it odd. She seemed to know them and was a very pretty girl after all, if rather furry and obviously feline in physique and species, and they were just trying to get her attention was all.

Hours later, after his third wonderful meal as her guest, he was once more in her debt for the use of a spare blanket. It was thick and soft,

It was thick and soft, and even had an oiled side against rain, and he found himself smiling as he realized that it smelled faintly of dander and spring flowers. Stretching out slightly across the second seat, he noticed that only Eng's group and the driver and crossbowman had thought likewise; of the rest of the tourists, there were only three more with blankets. He counted himself lucky indeed to have found her favor.

His last thoughts were on the relative safety, for once, of the rattle stakes **1** that the security team had set out. He wasn't used to alarm systems, and found that this idea really settled his nerves nicely, which had him nodding off quickly indeed after all that he'd eaten. _To think that I could rest with..._ and he was sound asleep.

The first two days had passed uneventfully as the suburban areas faded gradually, yielding increasingly to spotty patches of farm lands. The city's farming was mostly underground (unless you counted the innumerable kitchen patches and roof coops, of course), driven primarily by thermophilic chemovore mushroom crops and the raising of animals that preferred warmer climes, but there were always those crops and creatures that fared better in the open air. Farther out, even these yielded to the more isolated towns and villages that traded their goods to the city in return for food and mined materials.

They were now three days out, and residential areas were scarce.

They'd pulled in by a branch of the river that eventually led to the city. The road that they were on had paralleled it for most of the way so far, the city being fed by several such, with canals sectioning it all throughout to such an extent that a fairly brisk trade was made by barges of traveling water farms that made daily or weekly circuits, more so even than the simple passage of industry and commuters.

Lunch was a community affair this time, a large batch of fish provided by the netting efforts of the outriders who'd then shared it out with everyone.

Stony had spotted a large area of wild horseradish and basil growing nearby and proceeded to grate one as Hildur filleted a few fish into small, thin strips.

“Aren't we going to cook them first?” Weasel asked, smelling others' cooking fires and seeing nothing of the sort in the making here.

Hildur looked up and grinned, but said nothing.

Placing the horseradish greens into the basket, Eng passed around a salt cellar and bowl of vinegar rice balls.

Weasel had barely begun using it before Eng's hand shot out to still him gently.

“Careful, not so much!”

“I'm sorry,” he stammered, “I didn't mean to burden your budget!”

“It's not that at all,” she replied, “it's simply that this is sea salt. I should have warned you first. Here, wipe some of it off on some more fish.”

He looked puzzled.

“Sea salt?” he hazarded.

She nodded.

“What's wrong with it?” he tried again.

“Nothing's wrong with it, it's just that sea salt is three or four times as salty as the regular rock salt that you usually get.”

He looked down at his fish, sniffing it cautiously.

“Saltier salt... than _salt_?”

“Just trust me.”

Rooting around in her basket, Eng took out some kombu, setting it out in a neat pile several inches deep on a broad trencher. Following everyone else's lead, Weasel took some of the dark green leaves and placed bits of fish and dabs of horseradish into his makeshift tortilla. To his surprise, he found the kombu to be crisp and juicy, something like lettuce with a bit of tomato meatiness. The fish also wasn't what he'd expected. Instead of something slimy and unpleasantly cold and gaggingly raw, it was warm and rich with flavor, a mild and fresh fishiness offset by the sharp and pungent horseradish bite and paradoxically sweet-seeming sea salt. The meaded saké that Eng brought out was extremely strong, but also extremely sweet, and went well on his tongue with the burning pain of fresh horseradish.

As he ate, Eng explained that the kombu had come from her parents' pond, in which they had some rocks actively paired with others deep down for thaumaturgic heat transfer, and that it had been prepared and placed into the basket at just the right point to preserve it at peak quality. Naturally, this got her sidetracked with an idea for flea-beef tongue with a cream sauce, boiled eggs, and red chrain – red chrain being a mixture of horseradish and beets – and possibly a side of mashed potato pierogi with mushrooms and cheese. Hildur and Stony exchanged glances as Eng pushed more fish and kombu on everyone. With a meal so strongly protein based, they'd need to stuff themselves if they wished not to be hungry soon after – though they'd still have plenty to snack on from the basket, so that wasn't really much of a worry. Miles had a bit of pudge around the middle, and Eng's feeding habits were liable to increase this by a fair margin, and they were beginning to think that Eng might have just exactly that in mind.

They made the mouth of a mountain's gaping entrance by nightfall, the map's chevron pointing straight inward.

=====

Arkadia, the shining world beneath the mountains. The lava sea shone bright and warm, dazzling everyone. They could see for hundreds of feet – miles even, with some elevation above the teeming jungle floor – with no further illumination than the very sea itself.

All around, the walls of the cavern bore life. Pterodactyls soared in the distance over ferns and carrot-tops the size of a house; mosses and vines dangled from limbs towering far above them; cliff-like plates thrust themselves outward into thin air bearing life both on their tops and depending from their bottom faces, often with lines and web-works trailing between one and another of these jutting edges; vast thunderheads plumed ever-upward, losing themselves in the mist of the cavern's ceiling, a thin waterfall far in the distance, pouring in from the very mountain itself and backed at its churning base by a savannah at the far end of the cavern.

It wasn't long before what could have been the road turned one way and the chevron pointed in the other, off into a broad and slow-moving river, one which very likely led to the very one of the previous day's lunch. A few catoblepae lounged nearby as they navigated around hummocks to reach the bank along the northern corner of the bend in the river, a slight breeze bringing the sensation of a chill from the damper air now around them.

Avoiding a few obvious noose-like vines depending from the tree limbs above the clear area around the river bank and easing their way into the somewhat cooler water, the Sesshōmaru dragon-yōkai were soon sloshing along happily, relieved at having a chance to play. Even the outriders' riding beasts seemed relieved of the heat somewhat, though the overwatch crew was now joined by the riders themselves, all watching for telltale ripples, fins, unnatural currents, hidden obstacles, predatory shadows, giant leeches, and anything else that they could imagine. Their imaginations were rather fertile and vivid, and hardly without good reason.

The tour bus floated well above the waterline, both built and spelled against the need for amphibious activity. They soon found themselves gaining the far bank, perhaps a mile upstream.

Clearing their way through the first few feet of elephantine leaves and fronds, they found a village open up before them, a small lagoon to the side with coracles set in among smooth boulders and innumerable cattail trees, small fish darted all about in the crystal clear water no more than two feet deep in most places. Other than by some stray dodos pecking at discarded bits of fruit and shellfish, it seemed to be deserted at the moment, though clearly hardly abandoned.

They slowed their pace to announce their entrance, rather than gain the village proper only to meet with hostilities.

“Hello the village!” cried the wizard atop the bus, his reedy voice carrying well enough in the relative quiet of the village proper. The outriders continued scanning the flora all about, having remounted immediately upon their return to dry land.

Not quite a shanty town, it must be inhabited.

“Hello?” he tried again, “Look, we know you're here. We wish only to pass through and seek no grievance with you.”

After a beat, the burdock root leaves to the left rustled and shifted to reveal a pair of guards, their weapons lowered. One was a hodgepodge of species in appearance, no limb of the same species as the next, and with a crab claw ending his left arm, the other guard slightly less varied and possibly of Goblinoid blood – or Halfling... or Tinker Gnome... or something – but with distorted limb sizes that changed from point to point, each of these figures standing barely taller than a Dwarf. Mongrelmen **2** , nobody's favorite, deemed grotesque and repulsive and shunned by most, their bearing cautious, neither defiant nor quite completely accepting.

After a few minutes of confused conversation, they decided to bring the visitors to Mogak, _the one who decides things_ , as they described him. The overwatch wizard and the driver left orders with the security detachment, then caught Eng's eye. Conferring with her friends, she asked Stony to guard the civilians and Hildur to come with for calming purposes. Weasel managed to attach himself as an observer.

As the group left, they saw others peering out hesitantly from behind baked adobe walls to one side and thin strips of leaf-curtains to the other. Free-standing walls blocked the lava sea facing rear walls of the nearly ramada huts, their rooves of upward facing split bamboo troughs forming shallow conical bowls that fed clay cisterns within the central chambers. Simply woven slats to the sides maintained what little privacy was sought, with dangling leaves providing some reduction of the reflected glare from the cavern walls and neighbors' sea walls, the front faces being without even slats so as to permit the greatest airflow from the local weather pattern of the cavern walls' cool downdrafts. Glimpses of the interior seaside rooms looked as if they were reserved for sleep, nice cool stone slabs laid out directly in the flow of air sucked through from the open fronts to the blast walls' heated flumes.

Mogak, when they reached him – slightly greenish gray and indistinct of feature, possibly slightly reptilian, though none could swear to it – was supervising teams of mold slugs **3** ploughing a canal to a distant stream. Behemoth creatures, velvety of sheen and easily distracted by vegetable matter, of which there was a plethora, they were in fact not animals but slime molds, taken of more-definite form than most and given to indolence, but useful for tasks that required great strength.

Sighing as he turned from the construction, Mogak made a motion halfway between a nod and a slight bow.

“Narla tells me that you wish to pass through our meager land,” he said, with an air of finality, but also seeming infinitely worn and tired, “I see you. You bear no ill intent. Go in peace.”

While the others seemed ready to agree and turn away, Eng stepped closer to him, now nearly face to face, their heights aside.

“Wait, you seem distressed,” she said, crouching down on her heels before him, “What ails you so?”

The Mongrelman smiled, his eyes pained.

“Worry yourself not, child, it is of no concern to you. Go your way while yet you can,” he replied as he turned back to the task at hand.

“Please,” she implored, touching his shoulder gently.

Her care stilled him.

“You wish to know our troubles?” he asked.

“And help however we can,” she nodded.

His eyes closed against this, his breathing now tight and labored, some few tears escaping before he could prevent them.

“Why?” he asked.

“How could we not?”

Something within him crumbled. They both knew this, but she had the good graces not to press matters.

“The river is dying” he began slowly, waiting for her to wave this away, but she only listened for more.

It had begun some time ago, when the more sensitive crops ceased thriving and the lagoon silted badly. Over time, more and more crops failed, and the lagoon and shoreline silted more rapidly and increasingly often, the waters overspilling their bounds and tasting foul with minerals. They'd followed the water course back to its source, a set of mouths in the cavern wall miles to the southwest, but the area was rife with Hooked Owlbear **4** warrens, and they could go no farther. Testing the waters there though revealed them to be fouler still than at the village, in keeping with the vegetation looking even more worse for wear than their own. Their only hope now was to dig irrigation courses to clean water before they were lost entirely and forced to find new shelter in land not already claimed by others.

As Mogak's tale wound down, Eng looked up to the scree hills in the distance, then back to Mogak and on to the rest of her group.

This was going to be a hard sell.

**O ~~~ O**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **1** Rattle stakes: (My own idea, I think, not certain [it's been 16-33 years], but even if I did come up with this my own version unprompted, I imagine that many others likely have as well.) Normally a single wide-spaced perimeter is all that's needed; the security escort is running dense pack with two breeds. The outer annulus will rattle gently at anything larger than an approaching housecat, with other stakes nearby rattling somewhat more quietly, to ward it away from the whole wall, which also zeroes the guards to its location pretty tightly. The inner annulus raises a loud clacking, notifying the whole camp of anything that failed to heed the first warning, and providing that watch shift a solid ingress vector.
> 
> **2** Mongrelmen: Standard D&D. The description in the paragraphs above tells you all. They were the creation of a wizard who died long ago, and they don't really have hierarchies. Beyond that, they basically just wish to live in peace, and aspire to be accepted even a little bit.
> 
> **3** Mold slugs: Think giant slug bodies in their form, with a shambling mound appearance, but slime mold biology.
> 
> **4** Hooked Owlbears: Gamers' TL;DR: these are a hybrid of Hook Horrors and owlbears; I haven't statted them out, but you get the gist. The mixed capitalization is not an error or typo; I capitalize intelligent and semi-intelligent species in my stories as one might normally capitalize human nationalities in the real world.
> 
> English translation for non-gamers: eight to twelve ft (2.4(+) to 3.7(-) meters) tall, their fur and feathers permitting them greater maneuverability in water, with spiny thorn-like barbs festooning their shelled bodies beneath to better keep their prey from escaping their serrated beaks' hungering gnash, and weighing in at 1,000-1,500 pounds (454(-) to 680(+) kilograms) each, these beasts might not present much of a challenge to the party alone, but would be insurmountably deadly if even only a few denfuls were to battle them outright. The “hook” name comes into play due to the foot-long claws that curve back at the tips, razor sharp and ready to remove limbs or trip targets.


	5. The mushroom kingdom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mongrelman luau and desert queens precurse a foray to the headwaters of the river, far above the cavern floor and deep within its walls.

The discussion was heated, but they were finally decided when Eng took out her crystal only to see the chevron spinning every which way. With no clear course indicated to the contrary, she was going to help the Mongrelmen, with or without backup.

The NCOIC debated some, but in the end opted to leave the bus and tourists with the Mongrelmen as a layover while the team split up. He was nominally in charge of the mission, but she was the one with the guide stone. They would tout it as cultural exposure, and the civilians could tour the sights, soak in the mineral waters, bask in the tropical warmth...

The tourists took it all well, some taking a siesta beneath the bus's rolladen awning, others engaging in market trade, one already shucked down to skivvies in order to go swimming.

Weasel considered some sight-seeing, but opted in the end to go with Stony and Hildur to join the swimmer as a way to cozy up to them while Eng shopped – plus, it kept him nearby to Eng and offered some degree of protection.

The lagoon was relaxing, and after a little while, they got around to talking.

Weasel revealed that he was a farm boy – a runaway – from one of the small outlying communities that had a mix of heat caves, but focused on surface plants. The way that he told it all, how he'd come to leave and some of his mishaps thereafter showed him to be relatively guileless. This was no game on his part, he really was just telling them how he'd come to be where he was today, though without naming specifics of having fallen in with Blaw's crew. His family was blue collar, through and through, and he missed them, though he didn't want to go back to the drab future that the farm offered. He wasn't entirely unskilled, but had no special training in anything, just basic plant identification, animal handling, fire cantrip, and the like.

Hildur had grown up a street urchin, becoming a thief by natural progression. Shifting uncomfortably at this, she looked to Stony to take the focus away from her.

Stony slid into the gap easily, telling of how he'd started out in general construction – it ran in the family – before getting into barroom brawling, becoming a pro-fighter, and eventually specializing as a ranger. His real name was Gaston **1**.

It was then that Stony leaned in to Weasel, saying “As a specimen, yes I'm intimidating – but Eng likes you...”

Hildur picked up where he left off, adding “– and if you hurt her, we _will_ kill you. A _lot_ ,” then smiled and splashed him playfully.

As unnerving as this was, they didn't seem to be threatening him exactly, just warning him. That they were completely serious he had no doubt, but they also carried on from there as if nothing untoward had happened, frolicking and cavorting and just generally carrying on in high spirits for the remainder of the afternoon, and Weasel soon enough found himself in a good and festive mood once more.

The early dinner was a banquet, a wide assortment of foods laid out for the occasion. The group found the main dish to be a delicious fluffy rice with diced tomatoes, julienned eggplant, slices of red onion, and wedges of several different cheeses. One of the cheeses was sharp and dry, another wet and strongly flavored, the third soft and almost melting into the rice; there seemed to be a fourth, but Weasel wasn't entirely sure of this. Whatever the matter of it, the result was surprisingly tasty.

One of the more popular items was the broiled dodos with limes, cilantro, and a zesty mayonnaise-vinaigrette batter that Eng had worked on, trading recipes for the Mongrelmen's orange-sesame dodo, curried fish balls in cornmeal tempura (the fish involved were an enormous scorpion-looking crab-thing [something practically covered with feeler-antennae, these having been steamed and served separately], several sorts of cuttlefish, and some farmed coelacanth [a breed that they had developed themselves and were rather proud of, explaining that wild coelacanths weren't nearly as edible]), spring rolls, fried okra, and a salad of olives, endives, and artichoke hearts. The dodos turned out to be as juicy as geese according to Eng, while Hildur remarked on their meat being almost pigeon-like.

All of this was overshadowed only by the roasted suckling glyptodon that they'd slaughtered for the occasion; it turned out that the things were everywhere, and a bit of a pest problem. The sizzling glyptodon strip steaks with peppers and sweet onions, the piles of shredded glyptodon, falling apart and soaked in salt and garlic, and a side-stew of glyptodon rump and taro, their texture and flavor somewhere between a gamy pork and a sweet groundhog dark meat, all went wonderfully with the plátanos maduros.

Dessert was cane-sugared coconut over lemon meringue pie, and sweet potatoes with marsh mallow. As stuffed as everyone was, they all still managed to make room for dessert.

As the evening went on, Weasel noticed the slick-sleeves disappearing with some of the Mongrelmen; one with a pair of Halfling-ish sisters named Ane and Imōto (he'd been called “Jack the Halfling-layer” before, and more jokes were circulating even as he wandered away, even Eng cat-calling a bit – they seemed a tight group, but she fit them well), another with the Goblinoid that he couldn't really pin down but sort of seemed to be a girl (her name, appropriately enough, being Goblina; tall for a Mongrelman, slim, her dark lavender hair and light sage skin going together strikingly well, she'd be a head-turner back in the city, even had she not been well endowed; she also had a penchant for the slick-sleeve's flea-beef jerky), and the last with the one named Baldric who he was almost sure might be a guy (he, or she, or something, was slight of build and didn't really talk much, but was affable enough). Jack was going to have his hands full, given how the sisters hadn't kept their hands off of him (or each other, once they'd tumbled to his interest thereof, which amusingly fired the furtive and heated sidelong glances of a couple of the tourists) for more than five seconds through the entire meal. It seemed that even in their slipshod attempts at poorly polished armor, the slick-sleeves still managed to garner some attention. The older troops took a moment from their game of spades to shake their heads and laugh at all of this – whether it was simply the available warm bed, or the copious mezcal (the area was rife with monstrous agave), or just desert queen goggles, they started taking bets on the younger troops' performances when it came time to move on (side-bets were split between Goblina coming along or showing up later, and Jack seeking the sisters' continuing affection versus begging off future engagements and running for the hills). There would be guard shifts of two each per two hour shift over the night, but the young'uns wouldn't be needed 'til late, and they'd be split up to different shifts with one not even needed 'til tomorrow – plus, as one observed, what goes TDY stays TDY.

Most of the trees and cacti showed circular troughs around their bases, to collect runoff rain water, which had one of the NCOs confounded while trying to find somewhere to piss before bed, until stumbling into one of the civilians who had helped dig the latrine. It was the same Gnome who had told a ghost story around the fire, one about a mysterious paramecium said to haunt that very area, appearing at a random spot once every year to devour unwary campers. He was a trader in construction materials and tended to make friends easily, and so stood out in a good way.

The next day was no less hot and bright than the night had been.

The expeditionary party consisted of Eng's group, to include Weasel, three of the outriders, the indoor crossbowman... and Mogak. Eng argued against this, but Mogak calmly remained steadfast in his insistence. His village needed him no more than they needed anyone else, and he could provide no better service staying behind than he might by accompanying them. The driver had decided to stay with the bus, and while not officially the senior ranking NCO, or even active duty anymore, his judgment was deferred to. The outriders were all fighters, but one was also a cleric and another was studying to cut-train for wizardry.

The terrain was fairly forgiving, and they made a brisk and easy headway to the cavern wall, the lead outrider having a heavy sesame seed habit, spitting shells at what seemed to be every step of the way.

About halfway there, they passed a herd of whale-snailiens **2** grazing in distance. The herd clearly eyed them as a tasty treat, but one that they deemed to be too small a selection of morsels and too far away to be worth the effort, and so returning to their mixed salad of oliphaunts and palm trees. The oliphaunts were struggling in the webs spat out by the whale-snaliens, the acid clouds of their breath slowly melting the oliphaunts' skin and muscles, pre-digesting them. The trap was evident at this angle, a slippery mucosal path leading straight to the sticky funnel, outlying trees snapped into place by the oliphaunts' impact, breaking bones and skewering bodies, alerting the predators to their then-ready meal. It wasn't pretty, but there was hardly anything that they could do about it as they pressed on.

The Hooked Owlbears' warren presented far less challenge than expected. There was a path to the side that led up over the perforated face, with a switchback that opened into a wide mouthed cave entrance. With the Owlbears' main hunting ground being the area around the open riverside, as evidenced by a few bleaching skeletons dotting the banks and nearby scrubland, the path presented a seemingly safe alternative.

At first the cave entrance offered a dry and stone-dusty grit to the air, the light and heat dulling immediately, a cool calm descending over all as soon as they were within. It seemed almost cold by contrast as they wandered deeper into the interior.

It wasn't long before they reached the sound of running water. Following it was easy enough, but it was difficult to pinpoint the exact source, the burbling bouncing from every wall and corner as they neared the stream.

Eventually, they found themselves overlooking what resembled a farming community, though not like any that they'd ever seen before. Beneath them, a large room spread out in what was clearly a gallery of many, tall mushroom-trees springing up from mounded areas around their taproots, and what appeared to be mushroom-people of a wide variety busily carting away portions of the trees' produce to markets, while dumping the castoff mineral products into the streams that flowed through the cave and outward. The farmed areas were deeply intertwined with the residential portions, forming a mosaic of expanding ripples as seen from above, the community arranged in clusters around a central structure, and the clusters in turn loosely grouped around central areas of commerce and gathering, all forming a larger spread across the entire floor and centered on a large mass that might be a mushroom or a building or something of each.

Most of the streams came from still deeper in the cave system, but one or two seemed to well out of the upper reaches of the wall, presumably having made their way through capillary tunnels from far above. Running through all of this were still more mushroom-creatures, some seemingly the young of the colony, some acting as draft animals and pets, and several types being corralled as what might be food species. There were also some guards evident, with no doubt more that they couldn't see about, and accompanied by more mushroom-creatures in tow in a manner indicative of trained attack animals. The guards that they could see didn't seem to be terribly wary, presenting instead more of a precautionary posture than anything else.

Eng glanced at her map crystal, and the chevron was still wandering through its paces.

Another discussion broke out quietly then, Eng arguing for an open approach, seeking discussion rather than demands and force, the lead outrider in the difficult position of protecting the group while having no set guidance nor rules of engagement. Once more, Eng's decision prevailed.

**O ~~~ O**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **1** Gaston: Yes, Stony is meant to be essentially the good-guy twin of the Gaston of “Beauty and The Beast” (unlike Hildur, who reminds me somewhat of Discworld's Cheery Littlebottom, but isn't actually modeled after her). Without trying to run a thorough THAC0 character sheet on him, or balance his skills and equipment per the Disney original as modified for the Dimmendark setting, I'm just going to guess that he's around STR 18(00), INT 10, WIS 11, DEX 13, CON 14, CHA 15. Let's say level 1 or 2 fighter, and level 1 ranger (with a focus on land and fungal jungle, rather than giant moths or under-city caverns). Technically, Stony probably has ~½ level as a thief, which isn't exactly a D&D mechanic, but extending level-progression as a continuous function rather than integer steps, just stick his thieving percentages at midway between 0th level peasant and 1st level thief (I'm rusty, and whether “midway” might translate here more appropriately as median average or mean average, I won't go research just now).
> 
> **2** Whale-snalien: A snail type of creature the size of a whale (ranging from ~20' [5500 lb. M - 9000 lb. F] to ~80' [212000 lb. M - 242000 lb. F], typically), with an AC 0 silvery-gray shell (about the color of molybdenum disulfide grease, and further segmented to cover the neck and reach the skull) and pliable AC 5 armored skin (medium wood tone on upper surface, dull bone color on belly). For readers familiar with d20 and not THAC0, these would be AC 20 and AC 15 respectively. For non-gamers... picture these as full plate mail and a heavy shield for the main body's shell (including the head and back of the neck), and chain mail for the rest of the body.


End file.
